City of Lake Wales Using Flags at Cemetery to Remind Families of Rules

Monday

Feb 10, 2014 at 12:26 AM

Visitors to the Lake Wales Cemetery have been surprised to see neon orange warning flags on several gravesites. They appear after Tim Williams, cemetery superintendent, scours the cemetery once a month for any code violations.

By LANCE FERGUSON LEDGER MEDIA GROUP

LAKE WALES | Visitors to the Lake Wales Cemetery have been surprised to see neon orange warning flags on several gravesites.They appear after Tim Williams, cemetery superintendent, scours the cemetery once a month for any code violations.Figurines, lights and anything made of glass or ceramic placed on gravestones in Lake Wales' cemetery result in a small flag being planted next to them.Zailet Suri, the administrative assistant with the city's cemetery division, said it has been this way since 1996, when a committee was formed to bring order to the cemetery at 630 U.S. 27 N.Suri said cemetery staff might have been somewhat lenient in the past, but no longer. "It used to be where anything could be done prior to 1996, but after 1996 they changed the rules and regulations," Suri said. "The flags can be for anything from a ceramic vase, glass vase or silk flowers stuck in the ground."Suri said the reason is safety."When we go around weed-eating, if the Weed Eater hits those items, it shatters them," she said. "That is not just hazardous to us, but hazardous to anybody who is visiting the grave site and not necessarily just that grave site because the glass can go anywhere."The flags stay for 30 days. If the offending items are not removed by then, the city removes them. Faded silk flowers were previously removed without any notification. Flags now are being used to notify families.Additionally, gravestones that become too dirty or covered in fungus must be cleaned or a flag will be placed there, also. The city wants the family to clean the gravestones because it doesn't want to be liable for damage. A bulletin board outside the cemetery office displays the complete list of rules for flowers and grave decorations.Flags also will be placed next to the temporary markers that funeral homes place by the grave if it is not replaced by a headstone in six months. However, Suri said they respect religions like Judaism where stones are not erected until a year after the person's death.Since "not all families have $200, $300, $400, to spend on a head stone," Suri said, the city sells and installs personalized memorial bricks for $35.Although the rules may be strict, Suri said, they keep the cemetery looking its best. She added that when construction on the new and currently unnamed cemetery in Lake Wales is complete, another committee will be formed to create new rules there. The new cemetery will be on a plot of land north of Hunt Brothers Road. Suri said she expects the rules to be even more strict than those at Lake Wales cemetery."You can't please everybody," Suri said, acknowledging some people's frustration with the rules.

Lance Ferguson can be reached at 863-401-6981 or lance.ferguson@ newschief.com.

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